Friday, October 23, 2015

Again this was not probably for children but fits more into popular images of space. I have no doubt that some older children looked at this magazine. I have no idea of its title or general contents but it seems to have been popular science and some science fiction. (Possibly Znanie-sila (Knowledge is Power)) It reminds me of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics along with a number of popular technology journals. Feel free to share your additional information about it. Some of these illustrations are so good that I wanted to share them even if I did not know the context. This 1958 issue (maybe nov or Dec) was highlighting one of the latest Russian launches.

A very interesting illustration of the extreme conditions that humans may encounter during exploration.

Friday, October 16, 2015

I blogged back in March (March 13, 2015) about First Men to the Moon (1960) . I recently came across the German language edition which was published in 1961. While not a basic children's book in the English edition I was surprised that the German had very different illustrations and a much more "adult" look about it. Thought you might enjoy this. There seems to have been at least 2 covers on the German version. This second one may have been on the paperback.

Here is the hardcover cloth cover.

I think this artist was much more of a technical illustrator than Fred Freeman.

It does not show as much with these first few, but unlike Freeman's seemingly freehand version these are much more carefully drawn.

1960 version by Freeman

I also like how the artist in this version "translated" the technology to engineering drawings

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Celebrating 58 years since Sputnik 1 was launched (October 4th) I have a big Satellite post for you!One of the joys of going through these old kids books is seeing books that were actually used by kids. Here is a coloring book highlighting most of the recent satellites that children were aware of in 1965. An unknown child colored a number of these in this book and I find them charming.

The coloring book itself is really fun. The artist/author tried to give each satellite a personality as well as a basic fact or two about their mission.

You would not think that Sputnik 1 or Explorer could look so friendly. But these drawing give the sense of friendly observers watching over us.

It is also a nice history of how communication was the first mission of many satellites followed by observation.

Exploration and information gathering was yet another role for satellites and the artist tries to make them into heroes.

There were also the satellites involved in the exploration of the moon and planets as we contemplated how they might be explored.

This Ranger illustration may be my favorite!

Finally are the "other" satellites (including a space station). This is one of the few places I have ever heard some of these mentioned outside of some rather dry adult histories of space exploration.